The present invention relates to a device for recovering and unloading bar crop ends, the residual parts at the end of machining bars supplied by a loading apparatus to a machine tool, such as an automatic lathe.
In the field of machining bars by a lathe, it is known to use loading apparatuses that automatically and progressively supply a bar to respective spindle of the aforesaid lathe. One type of loading or supplying apparatus has a bar pusher that acts to make the bar advance progressively by successive steps through the machining station or stations of the lathe. The rear end of the bar is temporarily integral with the bar pusher by a mechanical coupling. Once machining of the bar has terminated, the rear end of the latter constitutes the residual crop end of machining that has to be evacuated from the lathe. At this point, the bar pusher is retracted until it brings back and releases what remains of the bar, i.e. the crop end, inside the loading apparatus. Although the loading apparatus disclosed above operates reliably, it is strongly desired to dispose of a more versatile technical solution that whilst ensuring very reduced overall dimensions and a simple and cheap structural configuration, makes it possible to recover effectively the bar crop ends to unload into a different desired collecting zone, thus eliminating the constriction of having to necessarily transfer the bar crop ends inside the loading apparatus.
One object of the present invention is to provide a solution that is able to simplify and improve in general the processes for machining the bars on machine tools and in particular recovering and unloading the bar crop ends left after machining.
Another object is to provide a device for recovering and unloading bar crop ends that is very versatile, that has a cheap, simplified structural configuration that is able to be applied easily and is adaptable to known loading apparatuses that are already in use.
Another object is to provide a device for recovering and unloading bar crop ends that have very small overall dimensions, both transversely and longitudinally, with respect to the bar advancement trajectory.
Owing to the invention, the drawbacks are overcome that are inherent in known systems for supplying bars and recovering the corresponding bar crop ends left from the machining process.
Features and advantages of the invention will be clear from the claims and from the description.